Via Andrew Sullivan, the kind of scientific finding that makes my blood run cold:
The acidification of the ocean today is bigger and faster than anything geologists can find in the fossil record over the past 65 million years. Indeed, its speed and strength—Ridgwell estimate that current ocean acidification is taking place at ten times the rate that preceded the mass extinction 55 million years ago—may spell doom for many marine species, particularly ones that live in the deep ocean.
The culprit, as you may have guessed, is the carbon-dioxide released by burning fossil fuels, which changes the chemistry of seawater. Says Sullivan:
This is the beginning of Lent. As a Catholic, one of the things I’ll be repenting for is living in a civilization that treats this astonishing planet as something to be used rather than conserved.
And I’ll add: for living in a civilization that treats public policy as a sideshow, a carnival, and a popularity contest — rather than a sacred responsbility to those who will inherit from us a diminished earth.
